+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 4, Issue 13, September 22, 2005. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 13 CONTENTS. SECTION ONE: New references. What's new at the Web Design Reference site? http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/webdesign/ New links in these categories: 01: ACCESSIBILITY. 02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. 03: EVALUATION & TESTING. 04: EVENTS. 05: JAVASCRIPT. 06: MISCELLANEOUS. 07: NAVIGATION. 08: PHP. 09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 10: TOOLS. 11: USABILITY. 12: XML. SECTION TWO: 13: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Facts and Opinions About PDF Accessibility By Joe Clark. "PDF files on the web are sometimes annoying and very often unnecessary. But when they aren't either of those things, we need to make them accessible for the same reasons we make other web content accessible...This article will explain how PDF does and does not support accessibility." http://alistapart.com/articles/pdf_accessibility Et Tu, Joe? By Tommy Olsson. "...If we take a more holistic approach to the problem, rather than focusing on PDFs, there are some major pitfalls if we start requiring external programs or plugins. One is that those are not always available on every computer. Sure, you can download a program or a plugin, provided that it's even available for your operating system. But those of us who are limited to snail-paced dial-up connections may not be too keen on downloading tens of megabytes. This also applies to the rapidly growing number of people surfing on mobile devices. There, the price of bandwidth is often forbidding, and the connection is usually even slower than a 56K modem...Developers and designers are human beings, and human beings are often lazy. Most of them won't do more than they have to, especially not when it comes to boring stuff like web standards and accessibility. If important and renowned personalities in the business say that it's OK to build web pages that only work in Internet Explorer, or which require JavaScript, images or Flash, there is a risk that many will use that as an excuse for not making an effort..." http://tinyurl.com/ajlxo Accessibility and Availability By Derek Featherstone. "Recent debate about what accessibility means has helped me clarify my thoughts about how I see accessibility." http://tinyurl.com/8hc32 PDF Opinions By Robert Nyman. "Personally, I definitely think there are cases when PDF files are the right format for the task, but generally they are/have been terribly overused on the internet. However, now at least we have a guide how to make them accessible when we have to use them, thanks to Joe." http://www.robertnyman.com/2005/08/26/pdf-opinions/ The Problem With Automated Accessibility Testing Tools By Trenton Moss. "Automated accessibility testing tools can be useful as they can save a large amount of time in performing some very basic checks for accessibility. However, they must be used with caution and they cannot be used as a stand-alone guide for accessibility checking. Indeed, some expert accessibility knowledge should always be applied in evaluating a site accessibility, perhaps in conjunction with the fantastic web accessibility toolbar to help dramatically speed up manual checks." http://www.webdevtips.com/webdevtips/article.php?item=94 +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. footerStickAlt: A More Robust Method of Positioning a Footer By Cameron Adams. "Recently I've been asked to code up a few sites that require the Web page footer to be positioned either at the bottom of the browser window or at the bottom of the Web page Ð whichever is visually lowest." http://www.themaninblue.com/writing/perspective/2005/08/29/ When Printing Kills By Eric A. Meyer. "'tags" is effectively a reserved keyword, even though no such concept exists in (X)HTML. Use it at your (users') peril." http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2005/08/26/when-printing-kills/ Reserved ID Values? By Eric A. Meyer. "As a follow up to my entry about id="tags" causing problems in IE/Win, here are four test pages for IE/Win..." http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2005/08/29/reserved-id-values/ How to Use CSS to Position Horizontal Unordered Lists By Stu Nicholls. "Let's say that you've chosen to use a horizontal styled unordered list for your navigation and have followed the CSS methods as posted on the web. All's well until you decide to position your menu centrally or to the right and this is where it starts to get tricky." http://www.webreference.com/programming/css_lists/index.html +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. Two Simple But Effective Usability Inspection Techniques By Joanna Bawa. "Two of the most popular belong to a set of techniques called Usability Inspection methods, and are known as Thinking Aloud and Cognitive Walkthrough" http://uk.builder.com/manage/project/0,39026588,39259978,00.htm +04: EVENTS. Eric Meyer on Professional CSS XHTML Techniques November 3, 2005. Chicago, Illinois U.S.A. http://carsonworkshops.com/design-dev/meyer/03NOV2005.html CSS for Designers: Molly E. Holzschlag and Andy Clarke November 17, 2005. London, United Kingdom http://carsonworkshops.com/design-dev/holzschlag_clarke/17NOV2005.html +05: JAVASCRIPT. Unobtrusive Javascript By Christian Heilmann. "Javascript is a wonderful tool to enhance the usability of web sites. It is the extra layer above the mark-up "what is this text" and the CSS 'how should it be displayed'. Javascript adds a new dimension, the 'how should this element behave'". http://www.onlinetools.org/articles/unobtrusivejavascript/ Breaking onload Limits By Alessandro Fulciniti. "Every javascript coder, in almost every script, has encountered the onload limits. In this article we'll present them briefly, together with some solutions. The window.onload event handler has two main limits..." http://web-graphics.com/mtarchive/001635.php addEvent() Considered Harmful By Peter-Paul Koch "Today I found excellent evidence that addEvent() can be harmful if it's used without intimate knowledge of the differences between the W3C and Microsoft event registration models." http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2005/08/addevent_consid.html +06: MISCELLANEOUS. RoI: How Hard is Your Web Site Working? By Troy Janisch. " Accountability is a good thing Ñ as long as it's based on sound objectives. RoI objectives can represent tangible things such as cost savings and intangible tings such as the projected impact your Web site will have on customer perception and behavior. They identify how you plan to use the Internet recover your financial investment and to achieve some specific communication goals and marketing efforts." http://evolt.org/node/60506 Call and Response: Handling RFP Tension By Nick Gould. "...So, in the interest of helping designers understand how they can make the most out of every RFP opportunity, this article highlights four areas of client/designer Òengagement tensionÓÑthat is, places in the RFP where client interests and vendor interests are most often misaligned and cause the most friction. I have also provided some suggestionsÑmostly drawn from the actual experiences of my firmÑto overcome or deal with these tensions." http://tinyurl.com/9gmqt +07: NAVIGATION. The Psychology of Search: Chapter One By John S. Rhodes. "Search is a killer application on the web and in the enterprise. Perhaps it is the killer app. Therefore, by definition and practice, it is a success story. At the same time, however, no one has explained search. That is, no one has explained the fundamental nature of search. Where is the psychology behind search? And quite seriously I ask, What is search?..." http://www.webword.com/2005/08/23/the-psychology-of-search-chapter-one/ The Psychology of Search: Chapter Two By John S. Rhodes. "No one really understands search, or searching. Don't be fooled! There is a poverty of understanding on this topic for many reasons, but the primary reasons are hubris and ignorance. Too many people are reluctant to admit they don't understand search, and too many in turn are too weak to resist those that claim they do...." http://www.webword.com/2005/08/25/the-psychology-of-search-chapter-two/ The Psychology of Search: Chapter Three By John S. Rhodes. "Human memory is incredibly bad. In fact, it is so bad that you probably don't remember what you ate for breakfast just a few days ago. The interesting thing is that human brainpower is pretty impressive; we are outstanding at pattern matching and problem solving. Memory has everything to do with search." http://tinyurl.com/axhp6 +08: PHP. PHP 101 (part 1): Down The Rabbit Hole An introduction to PHP's variables and operators. By Vikram Vaswani. "The Only Acronym You'll Ever Need If you're new to Web development, you could be forgiven for thinking that it consists of no more than a mass of acronyms, each one more indecipherable than the last. ASP, CGI, SOAP, XML, HTTP - the list seems never-ending, and the sheer volume of information on each of these can discourage the most avid programmer. But before you put on your running shoes and flee, there's a little secret you should know. To put together a cutting-edge Web site, chock full of all the latest bells and whistles, there's only one acronym you really need to know: PHP Now, while you have almost certainly heard of PHP, you may not be aware of just how powerful the language is, and how much it can do for you..." http://www.zend.com/php/beginners/php101-1.php PHP 101 (part 2): Calling All Operators The rest of the PHP operators (there are many), and simple form processing. By Vikram Vaswani. "In the first part of this series, I gave you a brief introduction to PHP, and how it fits into your Web application development environment. I also taught you the basics of PHP variables, and showed you how to add, multiply and concatenate them together. Now that you know the basics, it's time to focus in on one of PHP's nicer features - its ability to automatically receive user input from a Web form and convert it into PHP variables. If you're used to writing Perl code to retrieve form values in your CGI scripts, PHP's simpler approach is going to make you weep with joy. So get that handkerchief out, and scroll on down..." http://www.zend.com/php/beginners/php101-2.php Advanced PHP V5 Objects By Matt Zandstra. "Get introduced to more advanced and design-oriented PHP v5 features, including object types, which allow for the decoupling of system components, creating reusable, extensible, scalable code. You might want to take a look at Getting started with objects with PHP V5, which will give you the basics of classes and objects in PHP." http://tinyurl.com/7ouh4 +09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. My Experiences with Web Standards By Rob Dickerson. "It's been about eighteen months since I first encountered Web Standards..." http://webstandards.psu.edu/articles/experiences/ Web Standards, Part I: Conversion to Web Standards By Rose T. Pruyne. "Just having served on a panel that presented to Penn State Web developers about converting to Web Standards, I'm reminded once again that the biggest challenge with talking (or writing) about this subject is figuring out what on earth can be said that already hasn't been discussed six ways to Sunday." http://si.ist.psu.edu/blogs/node/48 +10: TOOLS. Colour Contrast Check Tool By Jonathan Snook. "The Colour Contrast Check Tool allows to specify a foreground and a background colour and determine if they provide enough of a contrast 'when viewed by someone having color deficits or when viewed on a black and white screen'". http://www.snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html +11: USABILITY. Open New Windows for PDF and other Non-Web Documents By Jakob Nielsen. "When using PC-native file formats such as PDF or spreadsheets, users feel like they're interacting with a PC application. Because users are no longer browsing a website, they shouldn't be given a browser UI." http://useit.com/alertbox/open_new_windows.html Back to the Opening New Windows Issue? By Shirley Kaiser. "Open New Windows for PDF and other Non-Web Documents is Jakob Nielsen's latest Alertbox article, dated August 29, 2005. Although he'd previously stated not to force links to open new windows, he now feels that you should indeed set links to open in new windows for PDF and other non-Web documents. Even after reading this new article, I still feel strongly about considering the website's target audience, letting the user choose, and avoiding accessibility problems..." http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2005/08/29/newwindows/ Is 1024 OK? By Jon Hicks. "As a designer (coming from a print design background) I'm with Jason. I would LOVE to think 'to hell with 800X600', and get that bigger canvas to work on. However, I also know that not everyone maximizes their window. They may have 1024, or much higher, but that's not to say that they don't keep their browser windows at only 800px wide. For the record I have mine in a widescreen letterboxy format- full width, but leaving room so that I can see my Stattoo dock. That's what its all about - everyone has their own preference." http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/is-1024-ok A List Too Far Apart? By Jeremy Keith. "I have a problem with the fixed 1024 pixel wide layout of [the newly redesigned] A List Apart. Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that they should have stuck with 800 pixels. Arguments have already started raging about this with some people fighting for 800 and others campaigning for 1024. To me, the whole debate seems pointless. Arguing about 640, 800 or 1024 pixels is like arguing about whether Pepsi tastes better than Coke when really, a nice glass of water would be much more refreshing. The numbers game is a red herring. A big fixed-width red herring. When you nail a layout to a set number of pixels, you're bound to alienate some people. It's inevitable. The best you can do is try to alienate the least number of people possible." http://adactio.com/journal/display.php/20050825222234.xml +12: XML. Changing (X)HTML page encoding to UTF-8 By Richard Ishida. "Aimed at newcomers to internationalization who want to change the encoding of their (X)HTML pages, this article provides an answer to the question: How do I change the encoding of my (X)HTML pages to UTF-8?" http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-changing-encoding [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +13: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? Accessibility Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/accessibility Association Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/associations Book Listings. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/books Cascading Style Sheets Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/css Color Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/color Dreamweaver Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/dreamweaver Evaluation & Testing Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/testing Event Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/events Flash Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/flash Information Architecture Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/architecture JavaScript Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/javascript Miscellaneous Web Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/misc Navigation Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/navigation PHP Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/php Sites & Blogs Listing. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/sites Standards, Guidelines & Pattern Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/standards Tool Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/tools Typography Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/type Usability Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/usability XML Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/xml [Section two ends.] ++END NOTES. + SUBSCRIPTION INFO. WEB DESIGN UPDATE is available by subscription. For information on how to subscribe and unsubscribe please visit: http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/webdevlist The Web Design Reference Site also has a RSS 2.0 feed for site updates. + TEXT EMAIL NEWSLETTER (TEN). As a navigation aid for screen readers we do our best to conform to the accessible Text Email Newsletter (TEN) guidelines. Please let me know if there is anything else we can do to make navigation easier. For TEN guideline information please visit: http://www.headstar.com/ten + SIGN OFF. Until next time, Laura L. Carlson Information Technology Systems and Services University of Minnesota Duluth Duluth, MN U.S.A. 55812-3009 mailto:lcarlson@d.umn.edu [Issue ends.]